Chapter 29: The Water Is Too Shallow To Hold A Big Turtle
Pure Wildmen are very terrifying. They are barbaric, vulgar, and bloody. They would risk their lives for a mouthful of food.
Wildmen who cooperate with nobles are not scary at all. Even if there are many of them, they are just a motley crew.
The lower the social stratum, the more justice is needed. Once there is no scale of justice, Wildmen will starve to death, and Wildmen will be used as spice raw materials.
Yun Ce hopes those corpses outside the village can scare away the Wildmen. Of course, if they are not scared away, Yun Ce does not care. He feels he has the ability to take E Ji and run away.
One stratagem, one plan—no one can guarantee perfect success. On the contrary, there are more examples of failure than success. If this time fails, the cost might be the lives of several hundred people in Hekou Village. That is unavoidable. Survival competition is sometimes so cruel. Who let them encounter this hopeless situation? Being able to keep them alive until now is already very good.
Yun Ce understands this point. Zhao Jin also understands. It is just that the rest of the people in the village do not quite understand.
Today, the people in the village had a great harvest. Although twenty-two people died, there are five Giant Bears and five Wild Boars, as well as quite a lot of armor, weapons, and more than one hundred and twenty sheep that can pull carts or be ridden—oh, horses. That is enough to make the entire village fall into joy.
E Ji likes to eat meat, so Yun Ce uses a pottery jar to help her render pork and bear meat. How to render? Put the pork in the pottery jar with a little water and slowly boil over low heat. After the water evaporates completely, the fat inside the pork will be cooked out. This fat will slowly render out most of the fat in the pork. When the pork is fried golden brown, it can be poured out, salted, and stored in another pottery jar. Just make sure the fat covers the meat pieces.
Pork and bear meat rendered this way can be stored for a very long time— a year without spoiling.
Yun Ce uses chopsticks to scoop out a piece of pork with fat and lean meat, lets it cool a bit, sprinkles some green salt, and feeds it to E Ji who is guarding on the side.
1 The crispy and fragrant pork rolls around a few times in E Ji’s small mouth and then disappears. She happily closes her eyes and opens her mouth wide, waiting for Yun Ce to continue feeding.
1 Because E Ji brought back a lot of pork and bear meat, Yun Ce needs a long time to help her render the meat. This night, Yun Ce busies himself by the fire pit for a very long time.
1 When the last pot of rendered meat is packed into a big-bellied pottery jar, Zhao Jin pushes open the door and walks in.
1 This time, he does not write on the wooden slip, but directly says to Yun Ce: “Wildmen came. They stayed outside for a long time, then left. 96%”
1 Yun Ce nods, indicating he knows.
1 Zhao Jin says in a low voice: “You can understand what we say. You just don’t want to speak the same language as us, right?”
1 Yun Ce looks up at Zhao Jin, shakes his head, takes up the brush, and writes on the wooden slip: “Not what you think. I can understand, but cannot speak.”
1 A smile appears on Zhao Jin’s face. He continues: “Wildmen left. We can live peacefully now.”
1 Yun Ce shakes his head and writes on the wooden slip: “There are too many people in the Wildmen tribe. E Ji just told me their people filled an entire hillside. If you want Hekou Village to continue to thrive, best seize this good opportunity to kill them all.”
1 Zhao Jin frowns and says: “We cannot beat them.”
2 Yun Ce continues to write: “They came from the wasteland side. Tonight they will surely camp in the wasteland. The wasteland has only had one small rain recently. The grass there has withered. Tonight is Crescent Moon. Wind blows from Hekou Village toward the wasteland. When Crescent Moon reaches the mountaintop, the wind will be strongest. If you chase now, and set a fire upwind of the Wildmen’s camp, the Wildmen will all be burned to death.”
2 Hearing this, Zhao Jin stammers: “No need, right? Wildmen will not come. 98%”
2 Yun Ce smiles and writes: “I am just giving you a suggestion. Go or not, you decide.”
2 Sweat suddenly breaks out on Zhao Jin’s forehead. He says with difficulty: “Let me think. 97%” Then he goes out.
2 With a large amount of fat, Yun Ce naturally makes an oil lamp. Hekou Village does not lack this thing, but lacks fat. E Ji watches the small lamp flame slowly light up the wooden house and joyfully stares at it nonstop.
2 Yun Ce’s figure hides in the place not reached by the oil lamp’s light and begins to have Doggy record his social practice activities.
2 Overall, this social practice activity is a failure. At least, diligence leads to wealth is not very realistic in this society. Caravans will not buy more of your Yi Tree Fiber just because you produced more, even if your Yi Tree Fiber is of good quality—it is the same fate.
2 It seems this society is deliberately keeping places like border villages in long-term poverty.
2 Logically, such policies and environment would easily spark a rebellion and start a revolution. Unfortunately, the people here lack wisdom and cannot understand such complex things. If forcing a revolution, failure is inevitable.
2 However, from the goods obtained from the caravan, whether Wild Boars or Giant Bears, they have one thing in common: both Wild Boars and Giant Bears are alive.
3 These two animals, when grown, their meat is not very tasty. So, the caravan sends these adult live wild beasts to Chuyun Colonel for some other purpose.
3 The most valuable goods is naturally that small beast with some sentience. This small beast’s spirit overflows—this is something Yun Ce has only seen in fantasy novels before.
3 If boldly speculating, one can draw a conclusion from the battle state of the Wild Boars and Giant Bears: that small beast with the five Wild Boars and five Giant Bears actually forms a complete battle team.
3 A Shang Zao rank warrior, bringing a hundred or so guards and shop assistants, can wipe out this wild beast battle combo. This negates the intention of those with ulterior motives to use this team for assassination and creating chaos.
3 What if for entertainment purposes?
3 Yun Ce thinks this way, putting himself in others’ shoes.
3 The small beast captured alive by the warrior is now in E Ji’s house, locked in a wooden cage, holding its broken half tail, gazing at the pondering Yun Ce with hatred in the darkness.
3 Today, it personally saw its beast companions skinned, dismembered, cooked, and eaten by humans. As one of the few beasts with some sentience, hating humans is very natural.
3 Yun Ce feels this guy is pretending—pretending hatred is more believable than pretending obedience. Unfortunately, Yun Ce does not believe it.
3 He moves the cage holding the small beast from the dark place to the fire pit side, pulls out the small beast’s half short tail, and prepares to have E Ji make it into a pennant tail to hang on his waist.
4 This thing is very important for a warrior. When idle, it can wipe blood off weapons. If too many arrows are shot from the quiver, the rest will rattle. Stuffing this into the quiver can stop the arrows from rattling.
4 E Ji takes the short tail and begins using a knife to break the remaining bones inside. The small beast starts squeaking sadly, a sound too pitiful to hear.
4 Yun Ce stares into the small beast’s eyes, hoping for its counterattack—like the spirit attack during the day. Result: none.
4 Yun Ce draws a burning firewood from the fire pit and presses it on the small beast’s hind leg pierced by an arrow. The small beast’s already wide-round eyes instantly well up with tears ready to spill. At this moment, Yun Ce’s head feels dizzy, the ground seems to move—just for an instant, the feeling disappears.
4 Yun Ce presses the burning firewood on the small beast’s injured leg again. This time the dizziness is stronger. The small beast’s eyes seem to see through his secret of originally coming from Earth. Even in space, a bunch of dragons appear…
4 Seeing the small beast’s wound not yet cauterized closed, Yun Ce finds a fresh burning firewood and presses it on the small beast’s through-and-through wound again…
4 Yun Ce finds himself gradually liking this dizzy feeling. Every time he wakes from dizziness, he feels like after a good sleep, his whole body full of indescribable refreshment.
4 But later, the spirit pleasure the small beast gives him becomes weaker and weaker. The last time, the small beast only lets out two weak moans, then no more movement.
4 E Ji runs over, prods the small beast’s head, finds it seems dead, happily takes it out of the cage, and goes outside to skin it.
4 Yun Ce also goes outside the house. The gate of E Ji’s house is broken from being rammed. No time to fix it today. Seeing E Ji skinning under the eaves, Yun Ce habitually sits on the threshold, gazing at the starry sky.
5 To see a full starry sky in this world, one must wait for Crescent Moon Night. Lifting eyes sees no Milky Way—Yun Ce’s mood immediately sours.
5 On Earth right now is the time to see the Milky Way spanning the sky, but here it cannot be seen. Except for one star cluster after another whose names he cannot call, there is really nothing to see.
5 Looking at the starry sky is interesting only with legends and astronomy knowledge. Without those legends and astronomy knowledge, it is meaningless.
5 Yun Ce does not think the dragon brought him away from the Milky Way. This has become his obsession when gazing at the starry sky.
5 E Ji has skinned the small beast. When propping it up with a stick to dry, she thinks this small beast is very cute—making it into a hat would surely look good.
5 Crescent Moon Night always has dropping temperatures and wind. The wind blows from the plateau where Yun Ce came. It should be snowing there. Just do not know if those birds like Phoenix will still cluster and fly at dawn.
5 Fire seems to have started downwind of Hekou Village—a line of fire. Soon, with the wind’s help, the fire gains momentum and rolls forward with the wind.
5 E Ji watches with great interest. Yun Ce only feels very bored—not just calculating the Wildmen bores him, even Hekou Village bores him. It is too remote from this world’s economic and cultural center. Wanting to know the full landscape of this world is too hard.
5 Yun Ce says to E Ji, who is twisting her back against his back: “I want to leave.”
5 This is the second time E Ji hears Yun Ce speak to her. She says delightedly: “Great, great! We leave tomorrow! 98%”
